Abyss
by TempeJill
Summary: My take on Brennan's thoughts at the end of the finale. Booth's thoughts are now up as well :
1. Chapter 1

**Am I alone... or did everyone else cry at the end too? They are so evil to us... Well anyways, here's my take on Brennan's thoughts at the end of The End in the Beginning. **

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She sighs as she stares at the computer screen in front of her, at the words that have been flowing out with barely any prompting from her. She hasn't had to think about a single tap of that keyboard... the words flowing so fast from her fingertips, her mind simply placing her thoughts out on to the blank canvas. As though anything could keep away the pain.

She glances over at him, at the still figure on the bed. The bandages wrapped around his head seem to alienate him from her. Pull him farther into the abyss that he has been falling down... away from her... for the past four days. His eyes are shut... she's beginning to forget exactly what that soft look in them was like; what it was like to see them melt into their soft and caring depths that always made her comfortable, safe... at home.

There is another abyss, one that she has been tumbling down at the same time for those four days. A place that she can't seem to escape; her own mind has imprisoned her. Fear has made her its captive. And she can't even find a logical or rational way to make it go away. There is nothing that can take her from it.

Not when he is there, in that bed. Asleep. In another world altogether...

She thinks back to what his friend from Japan said to her. About loving someone so much and it being worth the pain if it goes wrong. Because they are worth it.

"You love someone, you open yourself up to suffering, that's the sad truth. Maybe they'll break your heart, maybe you'll break their heart and never be able to look at yourself in the same way. Those are the risks. That's the burden.

Like wings, they have weight, we feel that weight on our backs, but they are a burden that lifts us. Burdens which allow us to fly."

She says the last words aloud as she types them, feeling the complete honesty and the inescapable relation to her that they have. They are no longer mere thoughts that could be a part of a story, a part of a novel... they are about her. They are about her and about the man that lies across the room. Across the expanse so great that nothing she can do will change it. Only time can change it.

And time is cruel. It could take him away, it could take him from her forever. It could trap him in that bed for all eternity, with her here and watching. With her helpless... forced to stand by. Forced to know that things... can never go back the way they were. Because it isn't her life without him.

It could never be her life without him.

She needs him...

To fly.

Nothing can change that... can carry her up again. He was her wings. They carried her out of the lab, they led her to a life she couldn't have imagined. They helped her understand things that never could make sense within the confines of the Jeffersonian alone... they let her see that life was not all abandonment... that people don't always leave... and that trust... can sometimes be present. Trust in him.

She can feel, in her heart, and that is only because of him. But it is what she feels... that there is hope... that makes her glance up from that laptop screen towards him once more. He has still not moved. He has still not dug her out of that abyss, has not pulled her from the buried depths so much like he did so very long ago after the Gravedigger...

Maybe he will not be coming this time. Maybe her belief that he would always pull through, would always find a way to do what he did best... what he could always do... maybe, this time, it was too much.

Maybe this was something that couldn't be defeated by her brave partner, who would do anything for her... who would surely open his eyes if he only could. Perhaps he was in there right now, fighting. Trying to get back to her...

But he couldn't. This time... he just couldn't.

She sighs once more and turns back to her screen. She hesitates, and then taps the delete key. It all vanishes, everything she's been working on without even truly deciding to do so... she does it because there is no point.

There's no reason to it, and there's no place for it to go. She doesn't want anyone else to see the words that come so directly from her thoughts. That open herself up so completely.

She would have shown him. Only him. Because he was the one she opened herself up to. He was the one she trusted to hold her emotions and keep them safe.

She'd never even realized that she'd done it, handed herself over so easily to him... not until it was far too late. Until she couldn't take back her feelings and the strength they had over her was too great. When she no longer could deny the truth in the words that others so often repeated. When 'we're just partners' seemed like a sad denial rather than a truthful defense. When to hear him say it... was almost excruciatingly painful.

Because she wished it _wasn't_ just partners. Because she wished... she could open herself up _more_. And she knew, now, why she had so very much wanted that child with him. She wanted to feel what love was like, since she was too afraid to even attempt to make what was already there between her and him into something more.

Too afraid it might fail. That he might not love her... that maybe he _was_ just her partner.

So she'd asked him to father the kid... so that she was sure she'd love her child. How could she not love someone who was both hers and his? Who was so... _theirs_? And she wouldn't have to deny that love. She could announce it; she could tell everyone how much the child meant to her without fear of loss or pain. Because she was _supposed_ to love her child. And she _wasn't_ supposed to love her partner.

She felt the fear rising again, as she stared at the blank computer screen. What if he never came back? What if... they _never_ became more than partners?

She wasn't going to have the baby. She wasn't going to do it when every single day, every single moment, she would see his face in the face of her child. It would be like carrying around a box filled with pain... like every day re-watching him die before her. Sure, he wasn't dead... but he was trapped.

Much like she was.

And he _would_ die eventually. And most likely before her, as well. Because here she was... sitting with a laptop, free to go and get coffee, free to return to her life if only she could find the strength or the will to. And there _he_ was. Lying there. Just waiting for it to be over. Because for him... it might as well be right now.

She hoped, truly begged in her mind, that he was not thinking that, where he was. That he was still fighting to return.

Her eyes flicked from the computer screen as she heard a slight sound from him. It would be another false alarm. She'd heard a sudden hum from a machine, caught the slightest movement of air brushing the sheets from a ventilation shaft and gotten a waft of hope... far too many times.

So she wasn't expecting him to actually have his eyes open, to be staring at the opposite wall, his mouth slightly open, his fingers twitching slightly... and murmuring coming from his lips.

She stared in shock for a moment, fighting between joy and fear or disappointment before she slid the laptop to the side and getting to her feet. He must not be awake... she must be dreaming, or hallucinating herself... but she must _not_ let herself believe him to be there. To be back. Because it will break her when he is actually not.

The word escapes her lips hardly without her realization.

"Booth..."

She says it again as she gets to his bed and sees that his eyes truly are open. That he truly is there. "Booth!"

It isn't an exclamation... more of a gasp. More of a stutter of shock. She barely gets the word out through her sudden overflow of emotions.

He looks at her... turns his head to _look_ at her... he _sees_ her, she can tell as his brown eyes meet her blue ones and she sees recognition there.

"You're awake," she chokes out, unable to avoid the smile that is spreading over her face, the slight laugh of disbelief and almost insuppressible joy coming out with the words.

"It was so real..." she hears him murmur. There is confusion in his gaze, but she can't make herself feel the fear that should bring. The joy is too strong, the excitement of him being back... of _not _losing him... it's far to overpowering. She can do nothing to stop it from taking over now.

"You're operation was a success," she tells him, feeling the relief that she is finally able to speak the words that she has been praying she would eventually get to say to him... "But you reacted poorly to the anesthesia." She's nearly crying as she says it, though the smile doesn't go away completely. She remembers with painful intensity how it was... trying to get the doctors to tell her what was wrong as the machines made the sounds she _knew_ they weren't supposed to make. As they called for medical things that she didn't understand, that she was so _frustrated_ about not understanding. In her own lab every word, every term, made complete sense. Here... she had been lost.

But the happiness is overriding the bad memories, and she can barely keep herself from throwing her arms around him and just crying into his shoulder about how afraid she was and how happy she now feels, and how relieved she is that he's here. That he's with her.

"You've been in a coma for four days," she says instead, "It took you so long to wake up..." A few tears slide out. She ignores them... they do not matter.

"It felt so real..." he mutters, and there is a slight frown on his face. There is more confusion in his eyes. He doesn't seem to be understanding what she is telling him... he seems to be lost in his own thought.

A shadow of worry moves in to cover a corner of her joy and relief.

"It wasn't real," she whispers to him, just begging for him to say something, anything, that makes sense. For him to say her name. To say Bones.

Instead he speaks the words that tear everything apart. Her relief is thrown down a dark hole of no return... her joy is extinguished like the only flame, the only bit of hope there is in the darkness of a moonless midnight, under a sudden gust of cold, raw wind. The wind blows across all she has known, all she will ever know, and all that she has ever believed or wanted from her life.

It tears down every last defense that she has; it shatters her walls of resistance and protection; it crushes her faith in him and in everything that she has ever had the ability to open up to, to allow into her heart.

It is like a physical blow. Like a stab to her heart... like she is being ripped apart from within. Every last shred of her is overshadowed by the cloud, is blown away by the wind, is overpowered by the roar of the thunder in her ears. A cold rain, a terrible storm... and end to a life.

Nothing is the same. Nothing can be the same.

She has been hit over the head... tied up and gagged... woken up in the darkness of an underground tomb that she is never supposed to escape... and he doesn't come. He doesn't arrive to save her the way he is supposed to.

She is standing in front of a casket... she knows that it is not true, she is waiting for him to shove through the crowd, to appear and attack the man that is the reason he has been pretending to be dead... but he doesn't come.

This time it is real. This time there is no sudden burst of hope. This time... her relief at him being alive and her anger at him scaring her like that... this time neither are there. This time the relief is gone, the anger is no where to be found...

And the fear is greater than ever before.

"Who are you?"

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**Believe me, there will be more. I will NOT be leaving it at that. What did you think?**


	2. Chapter 2

**As promised here is chapter 2!**

**Oh, and I don't own Bones. But I bet you knew that, since I wouldn't have ever had him say those three horrible words if _I_ was in charge.**

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He can feel that something has changed. It's like he's been pulled out of a place where he was stuck, oblivious to time, to space, to all that was around him. It's like he's been somewhere... but he hasn't really.

His thoughts are incoherent... he can't remember where he is... how he got there.

He remembers vaguely a single thing. A woman's face.

And he knows he loves her more than anything in the world.

She had just told him they were going to have a baby... she'd just said she was pregnant...

He'd never been so happy. Never before in his life. But now... now he can't even tell if that was real. He hazily recalls a memory... he can tell it's from longer ago. It has the feel of one that he's visited often...

The woman stands on a platform. She doesn't even bother to look at him as he approaches. But when she does look up, and he's standing right there, the intensity in her startling blue eyes nearly blows him off his feet. The anger in her gaze is stunning and a bit... scary. But... there's more there. There are secrets there. And he wants to uncover them.

He feels as though maybe he _has_ uncovered them, now... he can distinctly remember that there were times that she's opened up to him... but at the same time that is beyond confusing.

Because... isn't she married to him? Aren't they going to have a child? Don't they live their lives side by side, young and in love, and own a club? Don't they have no other wish but to stay that way, with their family of coworkers who they love and who love them back?

Isn't that life perfect?

Then why... why does it feel like _that_ is the dream, and not the faint memories that are stirring, hardly reachable through a mist of fog, through the cloudy waters..?

He can tell that his mind is fighting him, that it does not want to release the memories of The Lab and of his happy family. He wants that to be the life that he leads.

But the fact that he is starting to realize something is distinctly wrong with that idea... it makes him fight harder, makes him pull away. He needs to know what is true, what is false... what maybe lies in between. He needs to know where she is... if she is who he thinks she is.

If she loves him...

That is the greatest confusion. She loved him so much... and yet he can tell that maybe that is the greatest lie there is. The one that is blotting out all else.

His eyes flicker open, and he is relieved at the action. It gives him some clarity... the control to open his eyes. And it feels right. It gives what happened before a sort of dream like state to it... even though it seemed so... _real_.

Such a weird dream...

"Booth..." a voice murmurs. He realizes, a bit late and rather offhandedly, that he had spoken those last words outloud without even understanding that he was speaking. "Booth!" her voice comes as more of a gasp, and he turns his head slightly to focus on her.

It's her, alright. He stares at her in confusion. His mind from a moment ago is thinking _Bren_, but in his current state, the word won't come out. It's... wrong, somehow.

It doesn't fit.

Why doesn't it fit?

"You're awake!" she says, and a smile spreads across her face. She's so... beautiful. But he gets the distinct feeling that something is not... the same. The way she looks at him, it's filled with love. But... a nagging part of his brain is telling him that no, it's not that. It's telling him that he is reading it wrong, that... it's just worry.

He doesn't understand why he's thinking that.

Unless of course he _isn't_ married to her. And that seems to fit.

Then... where do the other pieces go, the rest of this puzzle?

She looks... so happy to see him. His memories, some more indistinct than others, and none of them with words or sound, just the images of her that he can recall, just little snapshots from a life he remembers, a life he doesn't, and a blur in between, come to his mind. And he's not even sure if that life he remembers is wrong, or right... or _what_. Does he work at The Lab... or at a clean and scientific lab? Their employees... he knows their real. He has memories of them, too, just like he has of her, except less so. The bulk of his memories are of her.

But he can tell, also, that they are not the same people that he was just with. That he was just... dreaming about, he supposes.

Still, he can't pass it off as a dream. It was a _long_ dream, if it was one, and it was like a whole lifetime had been woven for him. He has memories of their wedding, he can recall how they'd met... they'd run into each other, literally, in a small diner.

The diner, now _that_ is something that fits in both instances. It's a real place, it's somewhere he goes often. In both... worlds.

"You're operation was a success," she tells him, her voice strained as though the memory is painful for her. "But you reacted poorly to the anesthesia." What was she talking about? What operation? "You've been in a coma for four days."

A _coma?_

Now he is more confused than ever... how can he not remember even going in for an operation? Surely if he was sick he'd recall symptoms and the events that had brought him here...

Nothing makes sense... nothing is fitting...

"It took you so long to wake up," she whispers, her voice breaking slightly. The pain in her eyes hurts him, even though he still can't think straight.

That is the only thing he _can_ understand clearly. She's in pain, she's hurting! And he... loves her.

Doesn't he?

Either way, he doesn't want her to be hurting. He wants to protect her. Hasn't he been suspected of murder at some point because she'd been in danger and everyone thought he'd kill someone to keep her safe?

No... that had been part of the... dream. Hadn't it..?

"It felt so real..." he murmurs aloud, still just trying so hard to make _sense_ of everything.

"It wasn't real," she tells him softly, her eyes filling with tears. She looks so... relieved, and yet he can see a bit of fear buried in there. She's worried about him.

Maybe she should be.

He can't... he can't figure out what is what.

She just told him that it wasn't real... _what_ wasn't real? Everything he's feeling? They aren't married, he can see that.

So... maybe they aren't even in love.

Maybe there is nothing there.

Maybe... he doesn't even love her and it is just the emotions of his dream, flowing in just like his memories of that life. Of their marriage.

Nothing seems to be true. Nothing at all.

Is she... is she even Bren? Is she even the same _person_ that he thinks he knows?

What if her personality is totally different, what if she's just a colleague that cares about whether or not he'll be in to work ever again? What if... she just wants to work with him, maybe be friends with him...

What if _everything_ he's feeling right now isn't even his... but created by that dream, or fantasy, or whatever it was.

Her name isn't Bren, his mind is telling him that it's something else... that _someone_ else calls her Bren. He can hear the voice saying it... but can't connect it properly. He does recognize the voice, though, even though he can't place a name to it. It was in the dream, he's pretty sure.

But if he doesn't call her Bren, then what does he call her?

He can only ever remember his voice saying Bren whenever he referred to her... he can't remember anything but the details of the dream, blocking out all else.

And he's terrified that maybe there is no Bren, that maybe things are totally different.

Maybe _nothing_ he remembers fits.

He stares at her in confusion, frowning, and then voices three simple words.

"Who are you?"

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**I'm working on chapter 3 right now :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Here's the next chapter!!**

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The words ring through her mind, not really reaching her. She lets out a slight gasp of disbelief.

_"Who are you?"_

No. No... there is no way. No... _not_ Booth. This isn't happening. He can't just... he can't just forget! He can't just... not know who she is!

He's been there... since the beginning. Well, the beginning of what she considers to be her real life, anyways. Every important moment, every memory she considers to be the most essential in her life, that makes up who she is and makes her feel the way she does... has him in it. He is there, every time she recalls a hard time that she's gotten through, it was his shoulder that she'd turned towards.

He is the only one she's let see her cry without fighting as hard as she could to hide it. He is the one who has saved her life, who has rescued her from the most impossible of situations. He'd yanked that gag out of her mouth, he'd pulled her down from that hook even though he had broken ribs and all sorts of other injuries, he'd rubbed her back and told her it was all okay, he'd been the hand that had found hers in that sand, it had been him who had pulled her out into the fresh air and back to life, it was him... who had stood up and taken that bullet, the bullet that would have killed her, would have gone straight to her heart and sent her tumbling from that stage. Dead.

That is all him. That is Booth.

And it was him for whom _she_ had pushed away all other concerns and had trusted even her father just in order to get him back, it was for _him_ that she had broken numerous laws to get him back to safety when he'd been locked on that ship.

It is for him only that her concerns have been for during the past four days.

She hasn't left this room for hardly more than a bathroom trip. Ange has brought her food. Cam, Sweets, Hodgins, and even some of the grad students have visited, have kept her company through the long hours.

They all love him, but she does the most, and they know it. They have watched her as she stares at him... has begged with her somewhat tear-filled eyes for him to come back to her. They all have felt her pain. Maybe that's why none of them stay long here beside her. The agony in her silence must cloak them over as powerfully as it does herself.

And that agony, that fear... has no comparison on what she feels right now.

Another slightly strangled sob comes out of her in disbelief. She stares at the man before her, at the chocolate eyes that are so confused... that are not looking at her the way they are supposed to. They aren't filled with relief, or joy, or any form of happiness at all. They are just bewildered.

They aren't soft and caring, they are hard and dark... they are not Booth's eyes. They are the eyes of a stranger. Someone _she_ doesn't know... because he doesn't know her either.

How can he not? How can he forget all of that? Jasper, Brainy Smurf, their Christmas kiss under the mistletoe, her throwing her arms around him when she was afraid for Russ, him convincing her that it was okay to let others see her emotions, his guy hugs, that first day she met him when they were so very different then they are now... so very different _because_ of him and how he treated her. The fact that he had tried, that he had _not_ given up on her because she was distant and cold... and that now all of that has just vanished before her eyes...

She can't handle this.

He is the one that she trusts, the one that she let her emotions take her to whenever the world became too much, he is the one... who she loves and _knows_ that the love is true. And _that_ is because he taught her how to love.

Four years. Four long years _together_, and she never wants to forget a single moment they spent together, even if it was an argument or a bad day... it still defines who they are now. It still brought them to where their relationship is. Was.

She can't believe what she has just heard, because it means that everything, _everything_, that she is holding on to about her life, about him, is no more. It means that he is here... and yet she has lost him.

"Booth," she chokes out, finding no other word to say. There is so much pleading in that word, so much desperation for it to not be true.

She would do anything for him to just say that one little word. To just say Bones in that way that he does... the way that makes it more than a name, that makes her feel the warmth behind it and maybe even understand the emotion in his voice as something more.

He is still staring at her in confusion; he is still frowning. He still looks lost.

"You don't know who I am?" she whispers.

The words are filled with more pain than she can bear, but she does not move, no matter how much she wants to flee the room, to escape and just leave this all behind now that it is over.

"I..." he starts. He frowns harder, his eyes no long on her but on the back wall as he struggles with his thoughts.

"How can you not remember?" she murmurs, half to herself, half to him. The disbelief is so strong... she can't feel anything else. She has gone numb.

"I don't know... It felt so real..." he repeats.

"What felt so real?" she asks desperately, trying so hard to understand what has gone wrong... what he is thinking and why he does not just look at her and tell her he's glad to see her, glad that she's with him and that he's alive and that they can go back to the way things were.

"Such a weird dream..." he mutters again.

A dream? He had a dream... well, of course, she _did_ just tell him that it wasn't real, because she knew that whatever it was it _couldn't_ have been real. He's been in a coma for four days. Nothing going on in his head for that time could have been real.

"What was the dream about?" she begs him.

"You..." he starts. Her heart soars, her hope raises itself once more onto the wings that she has thought were gone, were wilted and dead. They are still there, she sees as she feels a gasp of surprise escape her and a soft smile barely hints at the edge of her lips.

_You_. That means he had been dreaming about her, that she'd been there... that he _does_ remember her. She isn't a totally different face, someone that has no recognition in his mind whatsoever. She isn't a stranger to him.

Maybe those memories are still there. Maybe he can still come back to her.

She pleads with her eyes for him to go on, and she can feel the moisture that has built up there overflow slightly. A tear slides down her cheek.

"You're pregnant..." he murmurs, his brow furrowed and his eyes still dark and filled with that confusion that she is growing to hate so much.

She shakes her head, "No, Booth... I'm... I'm not."

He frowns harder, then closes his eyes and leans his head back.

He stays like that for a while, thinking... probably trying to make sense of everything. She watches him, hoping with all her heart that he will figure it out, that everything will come clear and he will suddenly open his eyes and look at her the way he is _supposed_ to look at her.

But when his eyes do open they don't stare back at hers with care or love. They are still lost.

"Booth?" she says questioningly. Why won't he just talk to her? Just... tell her what's going on. He's supposed to be the reassuring one, not her... she can't make sense of this. He's the one who makes sense of things. Who explains them to her.

He shakes his head, and then he looks at her and asks again, "Who are you?"

She bites her lip, the tears pouring down faster now. For the first time she sees true concern in his eyes, overpowering the bewilderment and taking up the forefront of his emotions.

But what kind of concern is it? Is it because he cares about her, or because he's worried just about the woman crying next to him?

She tries to say the word that he seems to be unable to say. She tries so hard to say Bones. But she can't. Because it will not matter to him... because he needs to say it on his own. He needs to call her Bones without her telling him to.

"I'm Temperance Brennan," she tells him, choking the name out. She shouldn't have to tell him this... she should _never _have to tell him this. He should know it already. And he should be calling her Bones, for god's sake!

He frowns, but there is recognition there. He knows the name. Her hope flares up higher, even though she knows she shouldn't be letting herself feel it. She should be preparing herself to stay like this, for him to never remember. She should be getting ready to live her life in a constant turmoil of pain and loss and regret.

But she can't put up a wall, she can't compartmentalize... she's unable to do what she used to be so great at. Those three words of his have crushed all her defense abilities. They are gone.

"The dream... was so real..." he says again. He's apparently unable to get his mind off of that.

"Booth, this is real, where we are right now. For goodness sake, you're Seeley Booth! You're my partner! We work at the lab, we solve murders-"

She stops short, seeing the spark in his eyes. Recognition.

"The Lab. We work at The Lab," he says.

"Yes," she sighs in relief. "With Angela, and Sweets, and Hodgins, and Cam..."

He's suddenly shaking his head, "No..." he's confused about something. "Hodgins... writes books. Cam works with my brother..."

"No Booth, that's the dream!" She can't handle much more of this, she knows it. Just when she thinks he is coming back to her, he plunges down another road altogether. "I was in the dream?" she questions, desperate to know what he is thinking. Who does he think she is, if he thinks Cam works with Jared and Hodgins writes books..?

"We... we owned The Lab together..."

Owned the lab? How could they own the lab?

"Booth, I don't understand."

"The club; The Lab. You and I... we were... but you aren't pregnant... we must not be..."

"Before the operation... we were going to have a baby, Booth. That's why you must have dreamed that."

"But... we were... married..."

Her eyes fly wide open. In his dream he was married to her... surely that means that in the dream he _loved _her?

"Booth, what do you remember about the Jeffersonian, about the FBI?"

He stares at her for a long moment, and she can practically see the cogs of his mind spinning as he fights to bring up those memories.

"I remember... you..."

Those three words are almost enough to overthrow the words from earlier. He remembers her. He knows who she is. Maybe not fully... but he does know.

"We..." he frowns again, "We solve... we solve crimes..." the idea doesn't seem to make much sense to him. But that doesn't matter. For now what matters is that he _remembers_ what they did.

"And in your dream... we were married?" she clarifies. "We... we loved each other?"

He stares at her for a long moment. She thinks she is going to burst from the fear and suspense of that horrible silence.

Finally he nods slowly, "Yeah, we loved each other. Do we... what's our... are we?"

He can't seem to put together a coherent question, but she understands what he is trying to ask nonetheless.

"I don't know," she whispers, her voice breaking, "Booth, I don't know..."

She can't tell him he loves her, or she loves him... she must wait until he knows what is right. Until he is back to being Booth again...

"I... I have to call the others... they'll want to know that you're awake."

He nods, and she takes one last look at him, squeezing his hand before she leaves the room and pulls out her cell phone.

Time to break the news to them...

A few tears slid down her cheek silently as the phone rings, and she can barely keep her voice from breaking as she says, "Ange... he's awake."

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**Anyone who has NOT heard: BONES HAS BEEN RENEWED!!! For TWO more seasons!!!! :)**


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